Join progressive leaders and activists to discuss
strategies for defending our rights to earn, learn, and live in dignity. In the
wake of the all-out attack against workers’ rights and against programs that
help our communities, it is more important than ever to come together across
movements and push to realize a vision of FDR’s "Second Bill of Rights."
Panelists will discuss a roadmap to fight back for progressive priorities
including ending wars and militarism; promoting workers’ rights; and developing
economic policies that promote jobs and communities instead of corporate
profits.

In the aftermath of the 2008 Presidential elections and in the midst of the
worst economic crisis since the great Depression, several other Chicago area organizations embarked on a
series of events and meetings with the long-term goal of promoting a wide-ranging
multi-issue discussion of progressive solutions to the economic crisis and its
root causes. The goal of the New New Project is to help bring together groups
and individuals who are engaged in struggles for peace, equality, social and
economic justice in order to collectively build a grassroots movement for
comprehensive change.

The title “A New New Deal” was
to emphasize the most important lessons learned during the Great Depression and
the New Deal era of 1930s. Then, as now, the election of a liberal and
sympathetic administration was not enough to consolidate the gains of the
progressive movement, nor was it enough to push through fundamental changes
necessary to deal with the economic crisis. However, the political opening,
combined with the heightened urgency for action to deal with the economic and
social crises, helped cultivate a renaissance of labor and community organizing
which led to deep reforms and big progressive changes.

Now, faced with an analogous situation, our job is to contribute to building a
united, effective, and influential progressive popular movement. That requires
each of us to work on strengthening our ties with other elements of the broader
progressive movement, working to build long- term relationships and alliances.
Only such alliances, mobilizing from below, can defend and extend whatever
progressive inclinations might emerge from within the administration, and resist
administration tendencies to capitulate to the center-right forces. Political
events since the 2008 elections have highlighted the need for
a united progressive movement that can give voice to the issues and concerns of
the large majority of our people who are not represented by the right wing
populism that has captured the media’s attention.

In his January 11, 1944, State of the Union address, President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt called for a Second Bill of Rights “under which a new basis of
security and prosperity can be established for all – regardless of station,
race, or creed.” Sixty-six years later, this vision of a United States in which
no member of society goes “ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed and insecure” has
yet to be realized. The New New Deal Project, believes that this
updated version of the Second Bill of Rights
provides the basis for broad unity among progressive movements and a vision of a
more just and peaceful society.

On June 13, 2009 the New New Deal Project brought
together more than 100 politically committed individuals from more than 40
organizations throughout the Chicago metropolitan area. The conference was
organized around four core issues: housing and foreclosures, labor organizing
and the Employee Free Choice Act, health care and the single payer movement, and
militarism and the federal budget. The goals of the conference were two-fold:
first, to move beyond education about the current economic crisis to developing
proposals for action and, second, by bringing together progressive activists
working in the four different areas to explore possibilities of joint activities
that would link these causes. The links below provide additional material about
the conference, including the original call for participation, the conference
report, report on action items proposed by the multi-issue breakout session, and
videos of presentations during the conference (as well as related New New Deal
events).

"Public
Perspective with Kevin McDermott (May 2009) -
Interview with Bill Barclay from the Chicago Political Economy Group
and Bamshad Mobasher from Oak Park Coalition for Truth and Justice.
The interview covers joint efforts by Chicago area activists to build a
movement from below responding to the economic crisis by addressing worker's
rights, the right to health care, stemming foreclosures, ending the wars and
diverting military spending to human needs. More information about the "New
New Deal" project is available at:
opctj.org/NewNewDeal"